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THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL RELATIONS. 



SPEECH OE HON. WENDELL PHILLIPS 



FOR AID IN THE PRESERVATION OF THE 






OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 



BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON", PRINTERS, 

3 4 School Street. 

18 7 8. 



£$*Bmihm$tt$ ^cgbhthnc. 












THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL RELATIONS. 



SPEECH OF HON. WENDELL PHILLIPS 



FOR AID IN Till) I'll fOS i: I: V ATION OF THE 



OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 



BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUD UK & SON, PRINTERS, 

3 4 S C ii o o l IS t R E E T . 

18 7 8. 



FJ2> 



IN EXCHANGE 

JAN 5 - 1916 



ADDRESS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 



The times which President Eliot has so eloquently de- 
scribed were hours of great courage. When Sam Adams 
and Warren stood under that old roof, knowing that with a 
little town behind them, and thirteen sparse colonies, they 
were defying the strongest government and the most obsti- 
nate race in Europe, it was a very brave hour. When they 
set troops in rank against Great Britain, a few years later, it 
was reckless daring. History and poetry have done full 
justice to that element in the character of our fathers, nothing 
more than justice. We can hardly appreciate the courage 
with which a man in ordinary life steps out of the ranks, 
makes the crisis, while no opinion has yet ripened to protect 
him, not knowing whether the mass will rise to that level 
which shall make it safe, — make a revolution instead of a 
mere revolt. But there was a much bolder element in our 
fathers' career than the courage which set an army in the 
field, — than even the courage which faced arrest and impris- 
onment and a trial before a London jury : that, as I think, 
was the daring which rested this government, after the battle 
was gained, on the character of the masses, — on the suffrage 
of every individual man. That was an infinitely higher and 
serener courage. You must remember, Mr. Chairman, no 
State had ever risked it. There never had been a practi- 
cal statesman who advised it. No previous experiment 
threw any light on that untried and desperate venture. 
Greece had her republics : they were narrowed to a race, and 



rested on slaves. Switzerland had her republics : they were 
the republics of families. Holland had her republic : it was 
a republic of land. Our fathers were to cut loose from 
property, from the anchorage of landed estates ; they were 
to risk what no State had ever risked before, what all human 
experience and all statesmanship considered stark madness. 
Jefferson and Sam Adams, representing two leading States, 
may be supposed to have looked out on their future and con- 
templated cutting loose from all that the world had regarded 
as safe, — property, privileged classes, a muzzled press. It 
was a pathless sea. But they had that serene faith in God, 
that it was safe to trust a man with the rights He gave 
him. 

Now, if you will go back to 1776 and 1789, and remember 
what the world had been before, you can appreciate the har- 
dihood which faced that dread responsibility, the courage of 
conviction which risked everything, literally everything, 
man holds dear on the soundness of an untried theory. They 
were neither madmen nor dreamers, but careful, conscientious 
statesmen. The stout-hearted courage and serene faith which 
led their Israel into that desert was of a far higher order than 
any which sets an army in the field. 

We stand here to-day still trying that, experiment. We 
stand here with the responsibility of holding up that venture. 
When seven hundred thousand men were added to the ballot 
list of Great Britain by a vote of the House of Commons, 
Lord John Russell leaped to his feet, as the vote was 
announced, saying, "Now, the first interest of every Eng- 
lishman is the education of the masses." That is the con- 
sideration which every American who remembers this grand 
experiment should bear closely on his conscience. 

Human learning, science, common knowledge, does not 
fortify a man against ciime. It does not create character. 
That we know by abundant experiment. Learning does not 



make a man moral. You can educate a brain so as to make 
it despise violence, — only to fall more in love with adroit 
cheating. "What is called civilization drives away the tiger, 
but breeds the fox. Mere intellectual education only changes 
the character of crime. When you speak of an educated 
mass as the safety of a republic, it is not the education 
of books, mere items of knowledge, mere reading and writ- 
ing. Emerson says, " The Yankee has more brains in his 
hand thau other races have iu their skulls." Still the Yan- 
kee is correctly represented by a Congress which finds no time 
to legislate, all its hours being consumed in watching the 
tricks and counterworking the dishonesty of its members. 

France has proved, and it has been proved in a variety of 
cases, that this sort of education does not make a State safe. 
It is the education, the training, that results in character. 
It is the education that is mixed up with this much-abused 
element which you call "sentiment." It is the education 
that is rooted in emotions, — of slow growth, the result of a 
variety, an infinite variety of causes ; the influence of 
books, of example, of a devout love of truth, reverence for 
great men, and sympathy with their unselfish lives; the 
influence of a living faith, the study of nature, keeping the 
heart fresh by the sight of human suffering and efforts to 
relieve it; surrendering one's self to the emotions which link 
us to the past and interest us in the future, and thus lift us 
above the narrowness of petty and present cares ; using our- 
selves to remember that there is something better than gain 
and more sacred than life, — yes, and that is to throw life 
away in what foolish men call rash, but wise; men see to be 
brave deeds, and which, while it leaves us poor, leaves the 
world better than we found it. 

The profoundest scholar of his day said, " No man is wiser 
for his learning,'' — a sentiment which Burke almost echoed ; 
and Wordsworth said of the dark Napoleon days, 



G 

''A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, 

Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought 
More for mankind, at this unhappy day, 
Than all the pride of intellect and thought." 

It is this — the character of those forty millions in these 
forty States — which is to make this second century of uni- 
versal suffrage safe. It is not the common-school system 
alone, it is not either the higher or the lower level of edu- 
cation : it is that education that results in character, — not in 
mere knowledge. 

Everything, therefore, that goes to make up character is the 
first consideration of a State resting on a republican basis. The 
State should create this influence whenever it can, and save 
and second it wherever it exists. This is one reason — a 
very grave one, it seems to me — why this earnest effort to 
save one of the most suggestive and most remarkable monu- 
ments of State history deserves State aid. I hold it of ex- 
actly as much importance, and in certain points of view of 
more importance, that the State shall preserve its monuments, 
shall minister to the emotions and sentiment of its people, 
as that it shall provide them with school-books. That 
monument on Boston Common is equal to a ton of school- 
books ; and while it speaks of gratitude to the men who gave 
their lives that our flag might mean justice, it lifts us to their 
level and moulds us to their likeness. Webster remembered 
this when consecrating Bunker Hill Monument. He said its 
object was not an historical record merely, but " that human 
beings are composed not of reason only, but of imagina- 
tion also and sentiment ; and that is neither wasted nor 
misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving 
right direction to sentiments and opening proper springs of 
feeling." 

Allusion has been made to the character of different 
States. I hope I shall not, as an individual, exhibit any 



self-conceit when I speak of New England. But I look 
upon New England as the sheet-anchor of these forty States. 
I think in the reverence for antiquity, in the sentiment 
which lies at the root of a New-Englandcr's character, in 
the value set on old towns and places and families and 
relics, in the fondness for searching out their connection with 
the roots of English ancestry, — in much that distinguishes 
a New-Englauder, — there is a large element of that charac- 
ter necessary for the permanence of our institutions. And 
Avhy I value it especially is that, considering the fermenting 
masses, especially in the southern sections of the country, I 
look upon New England, with its ideas and principles, its 
sense of justice, high level of civilization, tone of honor and 
patriotism, and serene faith, spite of all doubts, in the abso- 
lute necessity of saving that experiment which Jefferson 
launched, — I look upon this New England as the very cen- 
tre, or right wing, of the battle for the permanence of 
republican institutions here. 

I do not value universal suffrage, Mr. Chairman, simply 
as a catch-word, "representation and taxation," simply as a 
logical formula touching the man that pays and his right to 
follow what he pays. Universal suffrage has a broader 
value. God makes it his method, to borrow a French 
word, of securing the " solidarity " of the people, making 
the unity of all classes. When an Englishman looks down 
into a poor man's cradle, if he stoops to that helpless child, 
he does not do it from any anxiety. He knows that there is 
no probability, with the army and the deep-rooted institu- 
tions of his country between him and it, of that child's ever 
being able to lift its hand against his order or his wealth. 
So if he interferes, he interferes solely from love and pity. 
But when Wall Street looks down into a poor man's cradle, 
Wall Street remembers, with prompt selfishness, that in due 
time that baby hand will wield the ballot, and unless it has- 



tens to put intelligence on one side and integrity on the other 
of that baby footstep, its own wealth is not safe. I thank 
God for that democracy which takes bonds of culture and 
wealth to share their ripest advantages with the humblest 
soul God gives to their keeping ! Social conventions discuss 
the dangers of universal suffrage in cities; timid scholars tell 
their dread of it. True, it is a terrible power. It endangers 
peace and threatens property. But there is something more 
valuable than wealth, there is something more sacred than 
peace. As Humboldt says, "The finest fruit earth offers to 
its Maker is a man"; and the first object of government is to 
make a man, — to ripen and lift and broaden a man. Trade, 
law, learning, religion, are only the scaffolding whereby to 
build up a man. Therefore we should not shrink from dan- 
gers which beset this theory. We should remember its final 
use and grand tendency, and that God bids us earn safety 
by lifting that rotten, weak, and tempted mass to our own 
level, and only by so doing. This being our duty, every 
influence, even the weakest, that tends to make character 
should be carefully nursed. 

I think that the State, on the broadest consideration of 
duty, is bound to give its citizens something more than the 
knowledge of arithmetic and geography. It does well to 
supplement the common school and the university with that 
monument at Concord. I passed through your Hall as I came 
up. For what has the State set up the bust of Lincoln there ? 
A fortnight ago, I looked in the face of Sam Adams in the 
Rotunda at Washington. What did the State send that statue 
there for? It was only a sentiment! For what did she 
spend ten thousand dollars in setting up a brand-new piece 
of marble commemorating the man who spoke those words 
under the roof of the Old South ? It will take a hundred 
years to make it venerable. It will take one hundred 
years to make that monument on Boston Common venerable. 



You have got the hundred years funded in the Old South, 
which you cannot duplicate, which you cannot create. A 
package was found among the papers of Dean Swift, — that 
old, fierce hater, his soul full of gall, who faced England in 
her maddest hour, and defeated her with his pen, charged 
with a lightning hotter than Junius'. Wrapped up amid his 
choicest treasures was found a lock of hair. "Only a 
woman's hair," was the motto. Deep down in that heart, full 
of strength, fury, and passion, there lay this fountain of sen- 
timent ; undoubtedly it colored and gave strength to all that 
character. When they flung the heart of Wallace ahead in 
the battle, and said, "Lead, as you always have done ! " what 
was the sentiment that made a hundred Scotchmen fall dead 
over it to protect it from capture? When Nelson, on the 
broad sea, a thousand miles oil', telegraphed, "England ex- 
pects every man to do his duty," what made every sailor a 
hero? If you had given him a brand-new flag of yesterday, 
would it have stirred the blood like that which had faced the 
battle and the breeze a thousand years? No, indeed ! Noth- 
ing but a sentiment, — but it made every sailor a Nelson. 

They say the Old South is ugly ! I should be ashamed to 
know whether it is ugly or handsome. Does a man love his 
mother because she is handsome ? Could any man see that 
his mother was ugly ? Must we remodel Sam Adams on a 
Chesterfield pattern? Would you scuttle the " Mayflower" 
if you found her Dutch in her build? 

But they say the Old South is not the Old South. Dr. Ellis 
told us how few of the old bricks remained, which was the 
original corner, and which really heard Warren. They say 
the human body changes in seven years. Half a million of 
men gathered in London streets to look at Grant. The hero 
of Appomattox was not there : that body had changed twice ; 
it was only the soul. The soul of the Old South is there, — 
no matter how many or few of the original bricks remain. 



10 

It does not change faster than the human body ; and yet all 
the science in the world could not have prevented London 
from hurrahing for Grant or from being nobler when it had 
done so. Once in his life the most brutal had felt the distant 
and the unseen and done homage to the ideal. 

Nourish and ripen this sentiment, vvhich is one of the great, 
governing parts of character, exactly as you must minister 
to the knowledge of things and words and figures, if you 
mean to educate the people. It is the most important ele- 
ment of that education ; and if we mean to venture on another 
hundred years of this experiment, of resting the State on 
every adult man, his knowledge, his integrity, his self- 
control, you must educate the whole man. We have no 
right to throw this portion away, even if it were but a slight 
contribution. But this is a large and a generous one. Why 
did the newly levied troops, when they passed by Faneuil 
Hall and the Old South, break out into shouts? No officer 
ordered them. It was not done by the tap of the drum. 
What was it in their hearts, that, before they left the old 
city to go down and carry justice to the Gulf, what was it 
that made them break out into shouts? It w r as a something 
too valuable to be lost. This is no time to dispense with 
any of that element. 

I can remember when I did not fancy the ling, — when to 
me it represented something to which I could not swear alle- 
giance ; and I went abroad with some disgust towards the 
Stars and Stripes, for I knew the slave saw in it only the 
guaranty of his bondage. But I remember one day when I 
was in the harbor of Genoa, the " Ohio " anchored there, cov- 
ered with bunting to the very topmast. The Stars and Stripes 
floated gay on the breeze, and five thousand Italians in boats, 
covered with gala symbols, full of frolic, sailed around the 
Vessel, shouting. I found I could not keep my heart down ; 
I had to remenjber and rejoice that I was an American. 



11 

That is the feeling which the Old South ministers to, and 
that is what we come here and ask you to help. The people 
liave shown by their large contributions and incessant labor 
in this behalf that it is no transient, no local fending; that it 
covers the State, permeates all classes, thrills every heart. 
Even if it should not succeed, this very effort of devoted 
women to rescue these walls from destruction, appealing to 
the best elements of Massachusetts character, — this very 
effort, if it should fail, would do more, perhaps, than ten 
common years to educate Massachusetts. It has been in 
itself an exceeding great reward, if it ends to-day. The 
canvass of Fremont was said, with great justice, to have been 
the normal school of the American people ; and so if the old 
walls should fall, ingulfed in the maelstrom of trade, history 
will tell not only the faith and courage of the fathers, but 
also the loving struggle of the children to save that sacred 
roof, that it might teach posterity as profound a faith and 
stir as loving and devoted patriotism as it has done hitherto. 

I have no sympathy with the feeling that we are too 
poor. When one of this type remonstrated against the 
ointment poured over him, saying, "Why was it not sold 
and the money given to the poor?" the broader wisdom, 
the generous philosophy of the great Master covered all our 
nature when he answered, "The poor ye have always with 
you." Ordinary cares may be attended to at ordinary 
moments by ordinary methods, but on grand occasions you 
must waive these petty rules. You must rise to the level 
where God calls you, and he calls us to-day to save the 
monuments to make our children brave and wise. 

We crowd our streets with monuments, — what do we 
mean? Why do you set Everett here, and Sumner there, 
and Lincoln elsewhere, and Maun in front of your State 
House ? They are there as mementoes of great lives, the rea I 
wealth of the commonwealth. Is not Massachusetts richer 



12 

for the memory of these men? Is not Massachusetts richer 
that Sam Adams lived here, that Harry Vane walked these 
streets, that where the Old South stands Sewall, in the 
majesty of his repentance, gave to magistrates the noblest 
example that has ever been set the world over? No hour in 
history has risen to a higher level. Is not that a lesson 
broad, deep, profound, permanent, — to teach a people 
the grandeur of humility, of integrity of purpose, of 
whiteness of soul? These are the treasures that enrich 
Massachusetts. These are the things we hope you will 
save, and in saving them, save the very foundation 
and source of all good that is to come to the country. 
I may exaggerate the importance of New England, but I look 
elsewhere and I see wild projects, unbridled ambition, dissen- 
sions of race, quarrels between classes, ambition for new 
territory, — a hundred causes that threaten the permanence of 
this republic. Hardly any man can venture to hope, unless 
by great blessing, that a hundred years hence one flag will 
cover this continent. We are breaking into pieces, into 
half a dozen pieces, from a variety of causes. There is 
nothing that can hold us together but the sentiment of one 
country, one flag. How hard to ripen this sentiment ! I 
have faith that a hundred years hence freedom will be the 
law from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but I do not know 
whether one flag will cover the continent. 

It is only as far as I have faith to believe that the common 
school and the municipal institutions ; the character of New 
England, — the seed and type of everything that is valuable 
in public life, — will spread over the continent, to the Gulf 
and to the West, — it is only in that faith that I believe these 
great States can hold together ; and in order to that we must 
emphasize and intensify the New England character. I stood 
in this very hall fifteen years ago, with half a dozen others, 
and argued for the preservation of the Hancock House (I wish 



13 

it stood there to-day !), one of the half-dozen relics that gave 
Boston a past. We got a vote through both Houses, if I 
recollect right. You would like it to-day. We should not 
be obliged to climb five stories into this attic if you had that 
Hancock House to spread the offiees of the State House into. 
It was offered to you cheaply in the matter of money, but 
you had not the sentiment to save it. I remember an 
Arkansas slaveholder who had never seen anything older 
than twenty-five years, standing with white lips and trembling 
knees on the door-step of that house ; and when I said to him, 
in answer to his question, " Did the man who signed the 
Declaration really touch that door-latch?" "Yes, and his 
body lay in state above it," he sat down upon the step and 
said, "I feel very strangely ; I never felt so before." It was 
the first stirring of a poetic sentiment working in the mind 
of a rude nature. Let it ripen, and his hand would be 
clasped with that of Boston so tightly that no theory of 
white race or black race could break the union. 

Why throw away any means to make men nobler, to bind 
citizens into closer union and stir them to broader patriotism. 
Johnson said, "Whatever makes the past, the distant, or the 
future predominate over the present advances us in the dig- 
nity of thinking beings." 

Save everything that tends to that. Search out and 
gather up all that so educates the soul. When the people 
toil and labor to prepare such teachers, intervene and make 
the work easier. You circumnavigate the globe to find men 
to teach skill. You tempt Agassiz from his birthplace to 
question Nature for her secrets. Save, sacrifice liberally to 
save, the teachers God has put in our streets, teachers f 
secrets better than any Nature can show, — of law, order, 
justice, freedom, brotherhood, self-sacrifice, the nobleness of 
that life which serves man, and the happiness of his death 
who leaves the world better for his having lived. Geniu.s 



14 

can mould no marble so speaking as the spot where a brave 
man stood or the scene where he labored. 

Mr. Addison Davis, of Gloucester, then addressed the 
committee in opposition to the petition, taking the ground 
that the Old South was a hideous structure, offensive to 
taste, and that the site was needed for stores, which would 
add largely to the taxable property of the city. He sug- 
gested that a handsome building could be erected there, 
upon the front of which might be placed an attractive model 
of the old church, which would answer every purpose of the 
present structure as a monument. 



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